Opinion
Boost Your Real Estate Game with These Hot Data Tips
The National Association of Realtors’ 2023 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is packed with insights that can help you take your business to the next level in 2024.
Watch Out: Real Estate Slumps Bring Recessions
On paper, the economy couldn’t look finer. But little if any attention is paid to an iceberg looming ahead – the massive and growing real estate slump – the kind of iceberg that typically prefigures a recession.
How to Get DEI Right in 2024
The year is going to be another year filled with cultural landmines for companies. But the cost of reversing DEI commitments will be far greater than most companies realize – as much as $5.4 trillion.
Communities Are Rezoning. Now What?
It’s easy to fear these welcome developments will prove to be too little, too late for rapid, transformational change to our rental and for-sale housing markets. In this context, it’s more vital than ever that state legislators pass Gov. Maura Healey’s housing bond bill quickly.
Banker & Tradesman’s Editorial Cartoon: Happy (?) New Year
New Entrant Wades into Listings Portal War
If you’re like most house hunters these days, you started your search online. And chances are, you overlooked Homes.com entirely. But starting in the new year, the site is planning to give the two heavyweights a run for their money.
Next Stop: Hard Transit Funding Choices
Massachusetts faces a huge question mark about how to fund the future of transportation in the commonwealth. Gov. Maura Healey gets first crack at laying out an answer next month.
The Year Massachusetts Got Serious About Housing Production
2023 ushered in new policy initiatives to tackle the housing crisis. Is 2024 the year we get production back on track, as all levels of government signal they are prioritizing big solutions?
Serial ADA Plaintiff Makes a Hasty Retreat
The Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss an activist’s case, however, leaves the question unsettled of who can sue over Americans with Disabilities Act violations.
Banker & Tradesman’s Editorial Cartoon: Sagamore Bridge, 1 Mile
The federal government just gave MassDOT $372 million to rebuild the Sagamore Bridge. But how’s the money going to get there?
A Win for Affordable Housing in the Fenway
A religious order’s disposition of a 140-unit building was the perfect example of an opportunity to preserve this critical housing in a neighborhood with excellent access to public transit and amenities.
Boring Predictions? Not with 2024 Around the Corner
Writing a column about the big stories to watch for the year ahead is typically a fairly tame exercise. Not this time. Here are my bets for the big stories are likely to make 2024 a memorable year.
Home Listings Now an Endangered Species
It’s time to place the for-sale existing house on the endangered species list, right alongside the African forest elephant, the Yangtze finless porpoise and other critically threatened varieties.
Ditch the Doom and Gloom About Real Estate Commissions
Associations, brokers, agents and MLS leaders shouldn’t assume that defendants in the commission lawsuits can win on appeal – and that agent commissions will go down in the lawsuits’ wake.
What Motivates Boston Renters to Explore New Communities
New survey data will help you understand your renters and earn their trust in a way that can build long-term tenant relationships.
How to Move Mass. Transit Forward in 2024
Gov. Maura Healey’s made significant progress on her initial transportation goals. She now has a foundation to help Massachusetts build a better transportation system next year if she can keep up this drumbeat.
It’s the Housing, Stupid
The housing crisis has gone national, spreading from Boston and a few other blue cities to states and markets across the country. And along the way, it is helping poison the nation’s political mood by deferring or killing the dreams of a generation.
Boston’s Cherry-Flavored Rent Control May Cost Your Town a Teacher or Two
Research shows rent control hurts the value of all property in a city, and the way state school aid is distributed means other communities will lose some of their education funding if rent control returns.
Rampant Insurance Increases Are Stifling Housing Production
There’s a new threat to affordability that is jolting the rental apartment real estate industry, especially those in market-rate and affordable multifamily housing: insurance premiums.
Don’t Burn Your Mortgage
A couple of years ago, a Florida church celebrated making the final payment on the church’s mortgage by burning the document. But that century-old ritual comes with some huge risks.
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